


and think not you can direct the course of love

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Irene has a spat with her husband, she'll tweak his nose by selling state secrets rather than break the china. But perhaps this last time it went too far. Months after the Moriarty mess, Irene and Mycroft talk and reassess their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and think not you can direct the course of love

**Author's Note:**

> An answer to a prompt at **sherlockmas** on Livejournal ("Irene/Mycroft; darling, they've been married the whole time. (No, Sherlock doesn't know.) This whole business with Moriarty was all on account of a little spat because Adler would much rather break top secret government operations than the china. Mycroft decides at the end of the day, he really is in the wrong and takes Irene on a second honeymoon to make it up to her (bonus points if it someone involves them plotting to stage a scene to make heroic little Sherlock feel like he's saved the day. lol.)"). I really enjoyed writing this, but I don't think it turned out how the prompter wanted to. It's much more...angsty. But I like it anyway.

To be quite frank, her entire plan had gone to shit. She didn’t like to put things so vulgarly, but that was the only way she could describe the entire fiasco. It had gotten out of hand, her domestic spat, and she had nearly ended up dying by the end of it. And her husband…Mycroft Holmes had done nothing. If she had been furious at him from the start, it was even worse after she nearly lost her head. She owed her brother-in-law her life and oh, that was not the best feeling in the world. But at least Sherlock had showed he valued her life in some way. Her own dear husband hadn’t. She had given him time, given him space. And it was only now, months later, that he wanted to see her.

He had been one of her first clients, when she was still new to the business and he was still a low-level government official. He had intrigued her, because while she sometimes did her job most days they had tea and talked for his session. He had always intrigued her because of that. He knew her better than anyone, and she him. She hadn’t been collecting secrets when they first met; that had all been her husband’s idea. He hadn’t planned on her selling some of them to the highest bidder, but most of them she passed right along like a dutiful wife.

Wife. She never really thought of herself as such, since they had such an unconventional marriage. It wasn’t as though they shared a residence. It wasn’t as though at the end of the night they lay in bed together and talked about their day. They had a functional marriage, if that function was keeping the British government afloat. And she hated it. Once upon a time they had had something more real than they had now. They had had a relationship back when everything had started; now they had a partnership, and there were distinct differences. She wanted things to go back to how they had been, but now that Moriarty was involved and his brother was off cleaning up the mess she feared there was no going back.

Other than the terrorists, and that had been the result of a foolhardy and reckless decision on her part, most of her enemies were scarce. She supposed she had Sherlock to thank for that. Oh, she knew Sherlock wasn’t dead; that was one secret she had managed to pry out of her husband before she returned to London, when she had sworn she had seen Sherlock on the street in New York City. When she called to ask Mycroft did not sound as though he was mourning, and that was what clued her in that he was hiding something. She knew they didn’t have the best of relationships, but Mycroft still valued his family. Or at least his blood family. She wasn’t sure if he valued her anymore. She wasn’t sure if he ever had in the first place.

She had a key. She was friendly with his assistant; that was how she had gotten Anthea to agree to bring John to that factory all that time ago. The whole fiasco seemed ages ago, years and years, but she knew it had been less than one. So much had happened, so much had changed, and now she was finding herself wondering what her place was in all of this. She let herself into her husband’s home and made her way to the study. She knew he would be there; Anthea had texted her that she had left him with a glass of brandy brooding in front of the fire. And he was still there when she walked in, though the brandy glass was mostly empty now.

“Run away with me,” she said as she went behind his favorite chair. She never sat down in it because he was usually in it, but tonight he was in a different chair. He was leaning forward, elbows on his thighs and fingers steepled together. “We deserve a trip away.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “We do.”

She blinked. She started every conversation with that statement, and he either ignored it or brushed her off. She was so used to it that she wondered why she brought it up anymore. After a moment she came around to the chair and sat down in it. She saw there was a second glass of brandy on the table next to his chair. “She told you I was coming,” she replied, picking up the snifter.

“Anthea does not like getting involved in our affairs, but there are times she attempts to help us both.” He didn’t look at her. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” she asked, starting to take a sip of her brandy.

“Flirt with my brother.”

She paused, the glass nearly to her lips. “You waited nearly a year to ask me this?” she asked as she lowered her glass, her eyebrow raised.

“It was not important until now.” He picked up his own glass and swirled the last of the liquid in it around. “He is not infatuated with you, but he had questions. Questions I did not want to answer.”

“Does he know about us?” She looked at her husband intently. She did not mind if Sherlock knew; she doubted he would understand, but they were related. He risked his life for her. He should know.

Mycroft shook his head just enough for it to show. “No. I didn’t think he should.”

“Pity. If he knew then maybe he would understand you better.” She set her glass back down on the table and waited a moment. Then she went over to her husband and took his glass out of his hands. She grasped one of his hands in each of hers, and knelt in front of him. “Why did you marry me, Mycroft? And don’t tell me it is because you love me. I know that is a lie.”

“Is it?” he asked, turning from the fire to look at her. “Do you really know my feelings?”

“I would if you would share them,” she said quietly.

“I…care for you,” he said, looking down at their hands. “I know you sold that secret to Moriarty due to the most recent spat we had before you got that code. It was better to tweak my nose than to break china. But it got an already dangerous opponent even more involved in our lives.”

She sighed and hung her head. “Yes, I know. I expected this lecture months ago.”

“No lecture,” he said, running his thumbs over the top of her hands. “I just want an explanation and a promise.”

She was quiet for a moment, far longer than she wanted to be. She needed to marshal her thoughts together. “I flirted with him to stroke his ego, nothing more.”

“Why did you invite him to dinner?”

“Do you think I meant to sleep with him?” she asked, getting angry. “I may be many things, but I am not a cheater. Especially with my brother-in-law.” She tried to pull her hands away but he tightened his grip. “Mycroft, let me go.”

“You asked me to dinner, when we first met. And again when I stopped being your client."

“Yes, and it enticed you,” she said, giving up on him letting go. “I knew it wouldn’t entice him.”

“Did you have to use the same phrase?”

“I wanted to see what his reaction would be. If he had said yes it would have just been dinner.” She was quiet. “And I may have told him about us.”

“Why didn’t you? When you were at his home, why didn’t you tell him?” Mycroft looked back at her and she met his gaze. There was no challenge in it, just curiosity. “You had multiple opportunities.”

“He never would have believed me, he wouldn’t have understood.” She pulled her hands one more time and this time he let go. She stood back up and began to pace in front of the fire. “There are times I do not understand the type of relationship we have, Mycroft. We are no longer intimate. We only share secrets that belong to others. We have more of a partnership than anything else.” She stopped in front of the fireplace and crossed her arms under her breasts. “And I hate it, Mycroft.”

“I am sorry.”

She could hear him get out of his seat, and after a moment she felt a hand on each shoulder. If she wanted to she could lean back ever so slightly and lean against him. But she had something to ask him first, something she had to know before she walked out of this room and out of his life for good.

She turned, and looked up at him. Even though she was tall for a woman he was still taller than her, and she had to tilt her head back and have her chin up to look into his eyes. She didn’t want to; for a man of few emotions on his face his eyes gave everything away. When he told her the answer she didn’t want to see how he truly felt. “Why did you leave me to die?”

He was quiet for a moment, then took the knuckle of a finger and placed it under her chin. It had been so long since he had touched her in any halfway intimate way, long before she pulled her stunt. She wanted to shut her eyes and savor the moment, but she knew she should watch him. “I only told John Watson you were dead. I knew the truth. I told Sherlock where to find you. I could not leave you to die but I could not rescue you myself.”

“So you do care,” she said quietly as relief flooded through her.

“I said I did earlier.” He moved his hand and reached behind her, undoing the simple clasp that held her hair back. It spilled down her shoulders and back, and after a moment she placed her hands on his waist, leaning forward and resting her cheek on his chest. She could feel him put his arms around her, feel his fingers tangling themselves in her hair. “If we are to go somewhere together we should go soon,” he murmured.

“I will go anywhere with you,” she said, a smile on her face. Then she thought of something. “You got your explanation. What was the promise you wanted?”

“I want you to promise not to leave me alone to my fate,” he said quietly. 

“You didn’t leave me to mine. I will not leave you to yours.” 

“And I do not want us to have merely a partnership. I wish for us to have a real relationship. You are my wife. I should be a better husband to you.”

“I think you can be,” she said with a smile, looking up at him. And they stood there in silence for a few moments, with him keeping her close, until she leaned up and kissed her husband for the first time in years. When he kissed her back she knew then that things might work out for the best, and that was what she had hoped for most of all.


End file.
